Vietnam has stopped its old rule that only allowed families to have one or two children. The country’s lawmakers changed this rule on Tuesday.
This change was shared by Vietnam’s official news on Wednesday. The reason for this decision is to help increase the number of babies being born and to deal with the problem of many older people in the country.
Vietnam’s “golden population” time started in 2007. This means there were more working people than children and elderly people. This time might last until 2039.
The number of working people is expected to be highest in 2042, but after 2054, the total population might start to get smaller. This can slow down the country’s economic growth because there will be fewer workers and more old people who need care.
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Since 1988, Vietnam did not allow families to have more than two children. The idea was that women would spend less time taking care of kids and could work more. Now, families can decide how many children they want.
But Vietnamese families are having fewer children than before. The birth rate (number of babies born per woman) has been going down.
In 2021, each woman had about 2.11 children, which is just enough to keep the population steady. But since then, the number dropped to 2.01 in 2022, 1.96 in 2023, and 1.91 in 2024.
In big cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, fewer children are born mainly because life is expensive.
Nguyen Thu Linh, 37, said she and her husband chose to have only one child so they could give their 6-year-old son the best education and care.
“Sometimes I think about having another child so my son has a brother or sister, but it’s hard because having more kids means more money and time,” Linh said.
A health official, Nguyen Thi Lien Huong, said it is becoming very difficult to encourage families to have more children, even with new policies and campaigns.
She warned that fewer babies could cause problems for the country in the future, like having too many old people and not enough workers.
She also asked people to think more about the big picture of population and development, not just family planning.
Vietnam also faces a problem with more boys being born than girls because many families prefer sons. To stop this, the government wants to increase fines for choosing the baby’s gender before birth.
Vietnam is not the only country changing such rules. China also ended its one-child policy that started in 1979. China allowed two children first, then three children since 2021. But these changes did not help much to increase birth rates.
